


Supercorp prompt collection

by abcooper



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Tumblr Prompt, reposts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 01:19:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12446292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abcooper/pseuds/abcooper
Summary: tumblr prompts reposted to ao3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I try to occasionally stick all my tumblr prompts onto ao3 (You know.... whenever I want people to say nice things to me but I don't wanna have to do any work for it.)  
> Sorry to be reposting a thing that many of you have seen before, but I hope there are a few non-tumblrites who enjoy!

Kara is kind of a prude. She loves when Lena kisses her, absolutely melts into it like no one else Lena has ever kissed. When Lena pulls away, Kara follows blindly for more, makes little disappointed noises in the back of her throat. **  
**

But when Lena moves to nip at her jawline, Kara squeaks and pulls back. Once, early on before she’d figured out Kara’s boundaries, Lena ran her hands teasingly down Kara’s back to cup her ass through her pants, and Kara jumped away so hard she tripped over the coffee table and fell over.

Lena would never try to push, obviously. She’s not an asshole. She wouldn’t even go so far as to say she minds. She is ridiculously, embarrassingly, drippily in love. A lifetime of watching Kara try to cram six donuts into her mouth at once would make her happy, even if that was as dirty as things ever got.

It’s just complicated. There’s a disconnect, between the Kara she can turn into a panting, writhing mess with just her kisses, and the one who turns red and ashamed if Lena’s hands drift. Lena’s afraid that it has to do with alien physiology - that maybe Kara doesn’t have a sex drive, or maybe that her powers change the way Lena’s touch feels to her. She wants to know, but Kara hasn’t revealed herself as Supergirl yet, and Lena is trying to be patient. There are secrets stemming from secrets. It’s a long list of things to be patient about, and sometimes Lena feels like a crazy person, because she’s only been dating Kara a month and she wants to demand that Kara let her into every aspect of her life. She doesn’t want to wait. She wants to marry this woman, wants to buy a lake-house with her for the weekends, wants to co-adopt a kitten and argue about how to train it as a thinly disguised practice round at raising a baby together.

Instead, she comes over after work with potstickers, kisses Kara lightly at her apartment door and pulls back. As always, Kara follows for a moment.

“Hey,” Lena says, and holds up her bag of chinese food. “I know I’m a bit early, but I brought extra appetizers so you’d forgive me.” Kara laughs, and pulls her into the apartment.

“Early is good, it means more Lena-Kara time,” she promises, giving Lena that wide, dimpled smile that makes it ridiculously hard for Lena not to blurt out  _I love you_. “But extra appetizers are never turned down. Did your finance meeting let out early? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“ _Bad_  thing,” Lena says darkly, her irritation returning momentarily. “Let’s not talk about it, it’ll put me off my takeout.”

Kara makes a sympathetic expression at her and leans in for a soothing kiss. It’s just a fast brush of lips, but Lena pulls her back in for a second one, lingering. Kara’s mouth falls open beneath hers and Lena takes her time, doesn’t pull back until Kara is shivering against her. Lena rests her forehead against Kara’s, gives her a moment to recover.

“Chinese food?” she asks, and Kara grins.

“Grab us plates, would you?” She starts pulling containers out of the bag, making approving noises at Lena’s choices. “I’m like ten minutes into an episode of Great British Bake-Off, I’ll restart it if you want.”

Lena groans, mostly just for show. “I hate watching cooking shows,” she says.

“But you’re an amazing girlfriend and you want me to be happy,” Kara practically sings, and Lena rolls her eyes and resets the episode herself, settling on the couch while Kara tries to precariously balance the three remaining potstickers on her already overflowing plate. She must give up, because a moment later she joins Lena carrying both her plate and the potsticker container.

They settle into each other, not really cuddling while they’re both balancing dinner on their laps, but comfortably overlapping. The sun is coming through the window to put a warm glow across everything. It’s reflecting off the television screen the way it always does at sunset, so that it’s hard to make out the picture, but Kara’s too focused on lo mein to notice, and Lena’s watching Kara far more than she’s watching The Great British Bake-Off. It’s been an exhausting day, and Kara’s couch is comfortable. There’s familiarity building here, in these quiet moments between them. Lena munches chicken with broccoli and feels her eyes slowly slipping shut.

When they flutter back open, it’s because Kara is gently taking Lena’s plate out of her lap and setting it down. “Sorry,” Lena murmurs, and tries to wake herself up.

“Don’t be,” Kara murmurs, and pulls Lena against her, arranging them so that Lena’s head is nestled comfortably against her shoulder.

She must have been asleep for longer than she’d realized, because the sun has mostly finished setting. Kara’s apartment has gone dark, aside from the gentle glow of the tv. Lena’s awake now, and she doesn’t think she’ll fall back asleep, but she’s content to stay where she is, with Kara’s arm around her. She breathes in the smell of Kara’s day, the lingering scent of the ridiculous bath and body works products that fill her shower caddy.

It’s warm and comfortable, and Lena isn’t thinking when she presses a kiss to the smooth skin of Kara’s neck. Then she feels Kara go stiff under her, and comes crashing back to reality.

Shit.

“Sorry,” she says, and pulls herself upright, giving Kara space. Abruptly, she feels lousy and unwanted, and it pulls tears to her eyes. She wills herself under control; this isn’t about her. She’s not going to be someone who makes this about herself.

“Lena,” Kara sounds stricken. “I’m sorry, please don’t - don’t be upset because of me.”

“I’m not!” Lena hastens to reassure her. “I’m just tired, and I made a mistake and now I feel guilty about it. But that’s not - I never want to pressure you about anything, ok?”

“You didn’t make a mistake,” Kara says, and even in the dim light, Lena can see the conflict on her face. “I liked it. I always like it when you touch me.”

Despite herself, something inside Lena relaxes for the first time in a month. Underneath everything else, she’s wondered if maybe the issue isn’t complex at all - if maybe it’s just an issue with  _her_.

“But it’s hard for you?” she asks gently, and pulls Kara’s hand into hers, tracing the lines of Kara’s palm with her fingers. Hand-holding seems like a fairly non-invasive way to express support.

“You know that the Danvers adopted me when I was thirteen,” Kara answers her. “My birth family, where I’m from - we had different ideas about how sex and dating should work. I had an arranged marriage all set up. I would have married him when I turned sixteen.”

Lena’s breath catches, and she tightens her hand around Kara’s in mute sympathy. This is the closest they’ve come to talking about Krypton. Lena can’t imagine the agony of losing not just your loved ones, but your day-to-day  _normalcy_  in a single blow.

“It was hard, when I moved, to adjust to a new normal about dating, you know? Growing up, I was always taught to believe in self-discipline. Sexual desire was something to rise above. You felt it, but then you let it go and you did what was right for your family.” She laughs, all of a sudden. “High school in Midvale was kind of a shock, I have to tell you - one time I walked in on a kid getting a handjob in the stairwell and I threw my chocolate milk on them.”

Lena laughs too, following Kara’s lead. If she doesn’t want this story to be a tragedy, then it doesn’t have to be. Nonetheless, she puts her arm around Kara’s shoulders, pulling them closer together. When Kara’s head drops to rest against Lena’s, she knows she’s made the right move.

“So you don’t feel totally comfortable with desire?” she presses gently, and Kara sighs.

“That’s one way to put it,” she says. “I - Lena, you’re so gorgeous. And I spent a lot of time in high school trying to learn how to fit in, trying to follow a set of social rules that didn’t really feel like mine, but I never had to worry about this before. I’ve never been with someone before who could touch me and set me on  _fire_.”

“ _Well_.” That’s some unexpected ego stroking, and Lena can’t help but grin. “You’re telling me that you’ve been jumping away from me because of how much I turn you on?” 

“Yes,” Kara admits, and there’s almost a note of whining in her voice. “It’s just complicated for me, I suppose. I was always taught to rise above my desire, and then when I came to E - to Midvale, that wasn’t a rule anymore, but I never really felt much desire for anybody. It always - it felt alienating, like I couldn’t be a part of things here, but at the same time, it felt like a connection back to home. So feeling it now, for you, it’s a lot to come to terms with. You’re being so patient with me, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to jump back and feel terrible for every slip-up. I just need a little more time, if that’s OK?”

“Of course that’s OK,” Lena says, and cards her fingers gently through Kara’s hair. “You know - I don’t want desire to be at the center of our relationship either. I hope we get around to including it someday, when you’re ready. But I love everything that we do together.”

“Me too,” Kara tells her shyly, and they fall quiet for a moment, enjoying the intimacy of the moment.

Kara’s not ready to tell all her secrets quite yet, but she’s getting there, Lena suddenly understands. Kara had to know that the way she was talking obviously wasn’t about Earth. Everything that Lena wants, all these secrets waiting to be revealed - they’re not just glimmers of hope on the horizon. They’re certainties - landmarks in the distance that she and Kara can walk toward at their own pace.

Lena shifts so that she can see Kara’s face. In lieu of a kiss, she rubs their noses together. Kara giggles at the sappy gesture, curling herself more fully into Lena’s side. She can afford to be patient. She trusts they’re going to get there in the end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara is autistic and Lena has been developing a special weighted blanket that works for her despite her super strength

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did my best with this prompt, and I am very open to hearing and learning if I’ve said anything ableist or disrespectful.

When Kara’s middle school teacher throws the word “autism” into the conversation for the first time, Eliza and Jeremiah exchange a very loaded glance.

Kara’s still getting used to super-senses, and sometimes the world becomes overwhelmingly loud. The culture on earth is different from what she’s used to. It batters her at top volume from all sides, strange and alienating. Not just the different food and the different plants and the different clothes - subtler, more insidious things.

A girl says, “you have such pretty hair, Kara,” trying to be friendly, and Kara scowls a little, says, “I have a very high IQ,” and Alex comes home to whine about it, mortified over the dinner table. It takes a lot of backtracking and questions to establish that commenting on someone’s looks would have implied an insult on Krypton. The established etiquette was to comment on someone’s most important features first - starting a conversation by mentioning someone’s hair is practically like calling them worthless.

By the time they finish asking questions, Kara is crying, and her hands are clapped over her ears. No matter how quietly they speak, it sounds like shouting to her. Eliza and Jeremiah can’t begin to unravel which of her tears are grief, which are physical pain, which of them are just exhaustion from the never ending litany of confusion.

Autism isn’t the worst framework for Kara’s teachers to apply to her, they decide. It bothers Eliza in ways that she has trouble articulating. The symptoms match well enough - the sensory overstimulation, the difficulty interpreting social cues. But the source is different. There’s nothing wrong with Kara; she just doesn’t match up with the world around her. The way that Ms Thompson talks about it, like Kara is an inconvenient mistake they’ve dropped among the 28 better-made children in her class, feels unfair.

Eventually, Eliza realizes that that’s probably true for every child on the spectrum, human or alien. She joins a local parent activist group.

Not long after that, Kal El mentions that lead blocks his super-senses, as though that wasn’t something they needed to be told  _immediately_ , and Jeremiah makes Kara a pair of glasses. Slowly, things get better. Kara watches TV endlessly, painstakingly mimics Alex’s body language, and begins to be very very good at pretending that this world is one she’s made to fit.

**

Lena waits six days before coming to see her. She shows up at Kara’s door, wearing almost no makeup and wringing her hands. She thrusts a bouquet of flowers into Kara’s hands, awkward, and Kara smiles gently and invites her in.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, pulling ice cream out of the freezer and dishing it out for both of them. She doesn’t ask, because she knows Lena will say no to anything less healthy than kale, but she’ll devour a bowl of rocky road if Kara just hands it to her without asking.

This time, the ice cream goes untouched on the counter. “I’ve missed you too,” Lena says. “I… I haven’t known how to say I’m sorry.”

This is what Kara was hoping to avoid with ice cream, but she levels her most compassionate look at Lena anyways and says, “you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. You did what you had to do.”

Lena laughs, a strained sound. “I know you’re Supergirl,” she says, which sounds like a non sequitur but otherwise isn’t very startling at this point. “I just wanted to tell you that, so you know that  _I_ know the full craziness of this situation. We’re best friends, and I helped your boyfriend’s mom take over the world, and then she kidnapped me to be his fiancee, and then I banished him from the Earth forever. I’d say you have six or seven reasons to be mad.”

Kara sighs. “I’m not mad,” she says. “Can we sit on the couch for this conversation? And eat ice cream?” Lena obliges, picking up her bowl and following Kara to the squishy tan couch that takes up most of her living room. They sit, cross-legged, with their knees just brushing. “I’m not mad,” she repeats. “Are you holding up alright? You look tired.”

“Rude,” Lena answers teasingly, deflecting. “You should know better than to say that to a girl, Kara Danvers.”

Kara flushes. “Humans have a lot of rules,” she says. “It’s a lot to remember. That’s…. one of the things I liked about Mon El. It was nice not to be the only person in the room who wasn’t practically born knowing all this stuff.” Lena looks like Kara’s words are hitting her like bullets, and Kara flinches. She wasn’t lying; she’s not mad at Lena, she doesn’t want to say things that will hurt her.

She’s not mad at Lena. She’s just mad.

“I got to Earth when I was 13,” she says. She wants Lena to understand - wants  _somebody_  to understand what it is she’s lost. Not a boyfriend. “I was desperate to fit in, but everything here was so different. I learned how to put on a performance, and I haven’t really ever stopped acting since. And then Mon El got here and he just - half the time, he didn’t see any point in putting on the act. It was freeing, having someone around who didn’t want me to pretend all the time. Who didn’t need me to pass as  _normal_.” She sighs. “It’s hard to explain. I know you and Alex never liked him much.”

“Well, no….” Lena admits slowly, being careful with her words. “For different reasons, I think. I was a little jealous, I can admit now. But mostly, I just …. I never thought he treated you very well.” She says it gently, like she thinks it’s something Kara doesn’t know.

“He didn’t,” Kara agrees with a sigh. “He was a controlling, insulting jerk, and more than half of our relationship was like I was babysitting him.”

“It was worth it though? For the freedom?”

“Not for that so much. I just… he could hug me.” Abruptly, Kara goes from dry-eyed to sobs, losing a battle that she’s been fighting for days. Lena pulls Kara into her arms, and Kara buries her face into Lena’s neck and rides the wave of emotion wracking her body. Lena holds on tight, even after the crying subsides.

She takes the time she needs, getting herself under control, and then reaches up to run her hand gently along Lena’s arm. “I can’t really feel this,” she says.

“What do you mean?” Lena asks, puzzled. Kara keeps surprising her tonight, never taking the conversation in the direction Lena’s expecting her to. She has the thought that maybe this is Kara when she’s not pretending quite so hard.

“Super-senses,” Kara explains. “When I was a kid, Alex’s dad made me a pair of lead glasses that get my hearing and my sight under control. But there was nothing he could do about touch. I can feel everything, but I can’t ever feel anything  _enough_. It’s like - it’s like you’re hugging me through a suit of armor.” Lena squeezes tighter, but she knows it can’t possibly be making a difference. There have been news clips of Kara getting hit by a train.

“I’m going to miss being touched,” Kara whispers, lying her head back on Lena’s shoulder. “I don’t mean sex or anything. But it’s impossible to explain, how much your body just wants to feel things sometimes. Mon-el was almost as strong as I am - he could hold onto me so that I felt it. I don’t think anyone else on Earth can.”

Lena is all too aware of her own human weakness, but she holds Kara close on the couch and does her best anyways.

**

After that, it’s another five days before Kara hears from Lena again. She’s a little disappointed; she wants the awkwardness to just disappear, now that the distance between them has been breached. It’s not as though she doesn’t keep busy, though; there’s an alien invasion to clean up.

Still, she beams when her phone buzzes and she pulls it out to see Lena’s name across her screen. ‘ _Are you free later?_ ’ reads the text, and relief is bubbling in Kara’s chest far stronger than lingering grief as she types back, ‘ _absolutely. Thai food?_ ’

‘ _And a movie. Call when you’re coming over and ill place a takeout order. 3 dumpling orders minimum, i know the drill.’_

Lena’s apartment couldn’t be more different from Kara’s, but Kara still always kind of likes it. It’s minimalist and soothing; everything about it looks tasteful.

“I have a present for you,” Lena tells her as Kara follows her into the living room. There’s a blanket draped along the gray couch. It hangs oddly over the cushions - heavily, like it must weigh more than it looks. Lena indicates it with a wave of her hands, and Kara wraps it obligingly around her shoulders as she sits. It’s soft, but a little stiff.

“Sorry I couldn’t get the fabric more flexible than that, the nanotubes just aren’t that elastic. I’ll keep working on it,” Lena promises, and Kara shoots her a puzzled look. Lena looks like she thinks she has just handed over something even better than thai food.

“I love it,” she proclaims, although so far it’s just a slightly uncomfortable blanket. Lena laughs, clearly reading Kara’s thoughts.

“Hold on, I haven’t shown you yet.“ She lines up the corners of the blanket and presses them together. There’s a snap, and then suddenly -

“I can feel that,” Kara breathes. The blanket is pulling in around her, creating a heavy solid weight over her shoulders.

“It’s exerting about 6 atmospheres of pressure,” Lena tells her smugly. “We can adjust until it’s exactly right for you, but I wanted to show you the prototype right away.”

Tears sting at the corners of Kara’s eyes. “Lena,” she says helplessly. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever …. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“No thanks necessary - this is something I want to be able to give you,” Lena tells her. “You’ve held me through some of the worst moments of my entire life, Kara Danvers. I want to be able to return the favor.”

She wraps her arms around Kara’s shoulders and pulls her in for a hug. Warmth and pressure surround Kara on all sides, and she lets her head fall into Lena’s shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soulmate AU where Lena covers up her mark because she doesn't want to be rejected by her soulmate too

Most people in the world don’t have soul marks, because most people in the world don’t need a soulmate. Lionel is drunk when he explains this to Lena, though she won’t realize that until she’s much older, looking back on the memory with all the clarity of an adult. **  
**

“Some people are a little easier to love than we are, Lena,” he tells her heavily. “It doesn’t take anyone special to do it - there are thousands of people who could love them. But you’re like me, I’m afraid - you’re damn smart, but you’re never going to be lovable.”

He shows Lena his soul mark, a thin geometric shape on his collar, and Lena traces her tiny fingers over it, curious. It doesn’t look like hers at all - hers is on her stomach, made up of soft curves and swoops that remind her somehow of birds.

She is only 5 years old, and she’s only been living with the Luthors for a year. She is pleased to be invited into Lionel’s big study, with the heavy tan globe that she can spin around on its heavy base. She is pleased to hear him say that she is like him, and to find out they have something in common. It feels a little like belonging.

The next day she asks Lillian if she can see her mark - she’s curious to know if it’s in the same place as Lionel’s.

Lillian’s eyes turn flinty. “That’s not a subject for polite company,” she tells Lena. Her voice is cold and quelling, but it always is, except when she’s talking to Lex. Lena takes it in stride, as she’s learning to do. She doesn’t figure out for another year that Lillian isn’t Lionel’s match. Lillian doesn’t have a soul mark.

When she gets older, she remembers what Lionel said, and starts to understand it.

She fucks the right kind of men in college. The sons of people her parents know, boys who are majoring in business at prestigious schools, who are going to inherit their parents’ kingdoms.

The soul mark puts them off. It creates a mutual unspoken understanding the first time they talk her out of her shirt - that this is fun, but impermanent. Lena is grateful that it spares her having to make that clear herself. Her relationships always seem to just peter out on their own, right around the time that they’re becoming unbearable to her.

It isn’t until Jack Spheer, whose face falls when he sees her mark, that she really understands.

“I have to go,” he says, and she starts to protest, because she really likes the way he teases her when they work together in the lab, and because it has been an incredible romantic evening, and she’s actually been looking forward to this part of things for once -

But the protest dies on her lips as she looks closer at him and sees the unshed tears in his eyes. She finds herself begging for understanding instead. “Jack, it doesn’t mean that I’m not - that I can’t….” she trails off, ashamed of the pleading note in her voice. He gives a little pained laugh.

“That’s exactly what it means, though. You can’t love me - you’re fated to love someone else.”

‘ _Fuck_  fate,’ is what she wants to say, because she thinks maybe she really  _could_  love him, at least the best that she knows how to love anybody.  But she already knows that it won’t be enough, and now he knows it too. Instead she just says, “alright. Will you call me tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. I need a little time to think,” he admits. After he leaves, Lena changes out of the sexy lace underwear she’d worn with devious intentions, putting on a pair of ratty shorts and an old t-shirt. She sits alone at her kitchen table, drinking a glass of wine, and understands.

The soul mark isn’t a gift. It’s a warning - to all the Jack Spheers of the world, the people who are kind and good, and love so easily. It lets them know ahead of time that Lena isn’t like them. She isn’t anything they can or should love. If it wasn’t written into her skin, maybe she’d be able to fake it. She might have tricked Jack long enough to let him love her, long enough to bask in his warmth and banish the cold for awhile. What a lucky break for Jack, to have the truth spelled out so clearly.

After that, she mostly stops bothering with men. She knows there’s not really any point.

Three years later, Kara Danvers walks into her office with wide blue eyes. She offers understanding, potstickers, and long conversations about N’Sync, and Lena is drawn to her like she’s never been drawn to anybody before. As a bonus, she and Lena save each other’s life about six times apiece.

When Kara kisses her for the first time, it sweeps through Lena like nothing else ever has. They’re in Lena’s apartment, sitting on her couch with thai food balanced precariously on their laps and America’s Got Talent playing in the background.

Kara eyes her uncertainly, waiting for Lena to respond, but Lena is too stunned to do anything but stare, bringing her hand up to her mouth to trace the lingering feel of Kara’s soft lips.

“I’m - I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just dived in like that, I should have asked. I was having trouble getting my nerve up. Are you mad? Please say something.” Kara always babbles when she’s nervous. Lena already knows that - already loves that about her.

“I’m not mad,” she says. It seems so obvious in retrospect - of  _course_  Kara is her soulmate. She leans in for another kiss, and everything slots into place perfectly. This is what she’s been waiting for her entire life, and Lionel was so wrong, there could be no greater gift than this.

She keeps thinking that for about fifteen glorious minutes, until she gets Kara’s shirt off and sees the expanse of flawless, unmarked skin.

Everything screeches to a halt, or comes crashing down, or crumbles. Words are empty. Lena stares for too long, until Kara tentatively says, “Lena? We can stop if you’re not ready… I wasn’t trying to rush you.”

“It’s fine,” Lena tells her. “More than fine. You’re beautiful. But this has gone kind of fast. Can we just -” her voice cracks. “Do you think you could hold me for a bit?”

She falls asleep in Kara’s arms, and keeps her shirt on through it. When she wakes up, Kara is clinging to her with all four limbs like some kind of insane blonde octopus. She weighs about 200 tons and gives off more heat than a freight engine, and her hair is a ridiculous bird’s nest. A lock of it is in Lena’s mouth.

Lena looks at her, and acknowledges something that she’d kind of already known - she really is in love. If Kara’s not her soulmate, it’s not because she isn’t everything that Lena could ever want in this world. It can only be because eventually, Lena isn’t going to be enough in return.

Her breath shudders at the thought, and it’s enough to have Kara’s eyes flutter open. “L’na?”

Her voice is slurred by sleep, and Lena can’t help herself - she leans in to capture Kara’s lips, selfishly savoring this brief stretch of time where she is allowed to do so. It can’t possibly last, but she vows to herself that she’s going to hold onto Kara for as long as she can.

She manages to keep her shirt on for four months. Eventually Kara stops asking why Lena won’t take it off, respecting Lena’s silence on the matter. Lena knows that Kara is envisioning scars, or some kind of traumatic past event, and she feels guilty for the lie implicit in her silence.

Every day that she lies to Kara makes it a little less likely that Kara could ever forgive her, that their friendship could possibly survive this, but Lena can’t bring herself to reveal the truth. Not when things are so good - not when every day that she hides it is another day where she gets to hear Kara’s bright laugh echo over her balcony, gets to see the soft fond look on her face as she plays with Lena’s hair, gets to have inside jokes and too much take-out, and limitless understanding and support.

That’s why it’s almost a relief when Kara shows up early one evening, flying through Lena’s open balcony, and walks in on Lena while she’s changing.

“Hey gorgeous, I brought - oh! Sorry,” Kara starts to turn away and then pauses. “Is that…. a tattoo?”

“No. It’s a soul mark,” Lena admits. Her voice sounds as cold and reproving about the subject as Lillian’s did, all those years ago. She can’t seem to change that; the heaviness in her heart is cutting her off from herself. She’s caught. She puts down the shirt she’d been about to slip over her head. “You don’t have the matching one.”

“Well… no,” Kara agrees, looking a little lost. “I mean - we didn’t have them on Krypton. We didn’t really even have dating, the way it is on Earth. Is… is this why you never let me see you without your shirt on? Because we don’t match?”

“You say that like you’re finding out we have different favorite television shows,” Lena remarks, “rather than finding out that our relationship has an expiration date.” But maybe that’s not as heartbreaking to Kara as it is to Lena. Obviously Kara can’t be as invested in their relationship as Lena is, after all. If she was, then they would be soulmates.

Right now, Kara mostly looks confused, although it’s starting to give way to something else, something more indefinable. “Lena,” her voice is pleading, “you’re not saying you’re going to break up with me over this, are you? It’s - it’s just a pretty birth mark.”

“It’s fate,” Lena points out, and to her shock, Kara lets out a snort. She takes a step forward, pulling Lena’s hands into her own.

“So what if I’m not fated to love you?” she asks. “I don’t care! I don’t. I’m not fated to love anybody. I  _choose_  to love you, Lena Luthor. I’m going to keep choosing you, every day. That’s - it’s better than fate, isn’t it? Can’t that be enough for you?” There are tears gathering in her eyes.

“More than enough,” Lena whispers, and Kara must hear the sound of Lena shattering in her voice, because she pulls Lena into her arms and pieces her back together.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Kara finds Lena’s sexual bucket list. As for what’s on the list? Idk. Back of Lena’s Town car? Mile high club on the L-Corp private jet?

“Lena, I’m home, where are -” Kara stopped herself short as she walked from the foyer into the living room, dropping her keys automatically into the little porcelain bowl that sat on the mantel for that purpose. **  
**

Lena was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, her head cushioned comfortably against Maggie Sawyer’s knee. She was holding a wine bottle, and there was another one sitting on the coffee table that looked empty.

“Hi Kara,” Lena beamed at her. Maggie smirked, looking very amused and also reasonably sober - Kara was willing to bet that the bottle and a half of wine had not been shared fifty-fifty.

“Hi sweetheart,” Kara answered, even though pet-names weren’t really their thing, because a lifetime of involuntary sobriety had gotten Kara into the habit of talking to drunks as though they were small children. She turned a stern look on Maggie, who leaned back comfortably on the couch and looked even more amused. “Why are you getting my girlfriend drunk in my living room at three o’clock in the afternoon?”

“We got lunch together,” Maggie answered calmly. “There was conversation that required drinking.” Kara crinkled her eyebrows, puzzled. Lena hadn’t mentioned that she was getting lunch with Maggie. As far as Kara knew, the only time Lena and Maggie had interacted without Kara and Alex both present was when Lena had been arrested.

“Uh…. and what conversation was that?” she asked a little warily. The sight of Lena with her head on Maggie’s leg was sending waves of insecurity through her, and finding out that the afternoon had started with a secret lunch date didn’t help. She’d only been dating Lena for three weeks. Their friendship meant they’d skipped a lot of the beginner steps - they’d jumped straight to serious and committed without much time to feel out each other’s boundaries. Things hadn’t balanced out yet to an even keel, and it was all too easy to worry that maybe they weren’t on the same page after all, that Lena was…

But the grin Maggie shot her in response was made up of wicked humor and too much teeth, and Kara knew immediately that she had nothing to worry about. Or rather, that she had a  _lot_  to worry about, but all of it was going to be OK.

“I’m afraid that’s classified information,” Maggie said, and Lena nodded fervently.

“Definitely classified,” she agreed, and grabbed a green notebook off the floor so she could clutch it protectively to her chest. Sober, Lena would have never been so un-strategic as to draw attention to the very thing she was trying to hide, and Kara felt a smile tugging at her lips. It might make a nice change to have the upper hand for once.

She came around the couch and sat down next to Maggie, pleased when Lena immediately shifted to bring her head into Kara’s lap instead. “Hey beautiful,” she murmured, and ran her hands through Lena’s hair. Lena sighed and relaxed immediately into the caress, like she always did. Head-scratches were Luthor kryptonite - maybe that was why Lex was bald.

“I’m glad you’re home, I’m sorry I am so drunk,” Lena informed her, digging her nose into Kara’s thigh. She said it a little petulantly, like a child who knew an apology was expected. She was unbearably precious, and Kara tried to fit the enormity of her affection in the way that she ran her fingernails lightly across Lena’s scalp.

“That’s alright,” she promised, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. “I’m kind of glad, actually. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Lena asked, and Kara snatched the notebook out of her hands in one quick movement.

“Because it makes you easier to match wits with,” she answered, holding the book above her head as Lena gave a squeal of outrage and made a grab for it. “What is in here that Maggie had to get you drunk for?”

“And thaaaaat’s my cue to leave,” Maggie said, getting up.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to chase you off,” Kara objected. “Stay for pizza.” She and Maggie were close enough to be real friends, finally, but she still felt like she owed her sister’s girlfriend some measure of courtesy above what she would show to Winn or James.

“Oh no, trust me,” Maggie said, and there was that flash of wickedness again. “This is a conversation for you two to have without me. Catch you later, super-Danvers.” She sauntered out the door, and Lena took advantage of Kara’s distraction to make a grab, stealing her notebook back as the door clicked shut.

“Ha!” she announced triumphantly, waving it through the air. Then she wiggled her way onto the couching, curling up against Kara’s shoulder as Kara automatically brought an arm around her.

“Alright, you win,” Kara promised. “I can’t steal from you while you’re snuggling me - it’s bad relationship form.”

“If you had just waited for Maggie to leave, I was going to show you anyways,” Lena answered primly. “Patience is a virtue, Kara.” Kara poked her in the side in retaliation.

“Alright, show me then,” she said reasonably, and watched with interest as Lena flushed pink.

“Here,” she muttered, and shoved the notebook into Kara’s lap. “Just look.”

Kara flipped it open, dying of curiosity, and found a list, scrawled in Lena’s cramped handwriting.

‘-cunnilingus’ read the first item, and her eyebrows rose as she skimmed over the page, occasionally caught by a phrase like, ‘- join the mile high-club, minus the plane’

“Is this…. a bucket list?” she asked after a moment, keeping her voice calm and encouraging. They hadn’t really talked about sex at all - Lena had been painfully closeted for a long time while under her mother’s thumb, and Kara was trying to be gentle about that aspect of things.

“Not exaaactly,” Lena said, and rolled her head over a bit until she could look Kara in the eye from her position against Kara’s arm. “I’ve never really… lesbianed before, you know. I mean, I’ve mostly just been on dates with asshole sons of my father’s most important business partners. And Jack, who was wonderful but not a lesbian.”

“I know,” Kara agreed patiently. This part she’d known for awhile.

“Well, so - I’m not used to it. And you’re not just a girl, you know, you’re also an alien, and it all seemed a bit complicated, especially since - well I mean, mostly with men, you just let them take you to bed. So I wasn’t sure which things were confusing because,” she waved her hands in a curvy gesture, “you know, because of lesbians, and which things were confusing because of species differences or whatever. I wanted to ask Maggie - I figured she knows what human lesbians do, and we could compare notes. And then if she said that you should’ve tried to get into my pants ages ago, I’d know to ask you if you go through some kind of mating cycle every seven years, or have tentacles in unexpected places -”

“I don’t!” Kara yelped. “I, uh - that aspect of things I definitely have in common with humans. Promise. So…. you and Maggie have been discussing our sex life all afternoon?”

“Kind of,” Lena admitted. “I might have been a little worried about messing things up, and Maggie said I had to get drunk enough to ‘calm the hell down about it’ and then talk to you. And then I didn’t know what to say, so I made a list.” She poked the notebook. “And now you have a list of all the things that I think sound interesting, and you can go through and checkmark the ones that you think sound interesting, and everything will be very efficient.”

She said it in a very final tone of voice, and then she buried her face back into the crook of Kara’s neck as an indication that she did not want follow-up questions.

Kara reached an arm around and grabbed Lena’s legs, shifting them until they were across her lap so that she could cuddle her girlfriend more thoroughly.

Reading between the drunken lines, she thought that this was something that had been bothering Lena a  _lot_ , if she’d worked up the nerve to go to Maggie for help. She knew that sex was a difficult topic for Lena - that was why Kara had been avoiding it altogether the past few weeks, trying to give Lena space and time to come to terms with their relationship.

Apparently that had been the wrong approach.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think it has to be this complicated,” she murmured. “I mean - I’m glad to have a list of things that interest you, and we can go through it and think about what we’d like to try. But honestly…. I just want to be with you, to touch you. Anything that we do together is going to be wonderful.”

Lena peeked up from Kara’s shoulder. “You think?” she asked - and Kara made a mental note to send Maggie some kind of thank you card, because a bottle and a half of wine was what it would take for Lena to let this kind of insecurity show.

“I know,” she answered firmly. “And when you’ve sobered up, I’m going to go through your list one by one and demonstrate it to you …  _very_  thoroughly.” Lena squeaked, and Kara leaned forward to begin reassuring her with a heated kiss. 


	5. Explicit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Supercorp on Cat's desk at Catco after hours. Bonus if Cat has security footage later.

“Are you sure about this?” Kara whispers, because it really does seem like something that could go wrong. Obviously she doesn’t totally mean it, though, or she would have posed the question  _before_  they broke into CatCo office.

Lena grins at her, still high on the pleasure of hacking her way through CatCo’s electronic locks. Kara is simultaneously a little turned on, and a little reminded of Winn. The two things more or less cancel out.

“Listen,” she whispers back. “We both know Cat Grant pretty damn well by now. Do you want to tell me that this security footage  _isn’t_ going to be her most prized possession?”

Kara can’t really argue with that. It became clear  _very_  early on in their relationship that Cat has a  _thing_  about her office. In fact… “You know, if you send her the video tonight, five bucks says she ends up booking herself an earlier flight back from Paris to join the encore.”

Lena’s laughter is punctuated by a slight beeping sound as she successfully tricks open the door to Cat’s office. It also sounds a little more understanding than Kara would like. She’s been really trying not to show how disappointed she is that Cat had to be abroad for their first anniversary, but she doesn’t think either of her lovers are fooled.

“Well if that’s what you’re hoping for,” Lena murmurs into her ear, guiding Kara into the office. “I think you’d better put on a very, very good show.”

The door shuts behind them, and a moment later, Lena has Kara pressed against it. The glass is hard and smooth against her back and Lena wastes no time capturing Kara’s lips. Kara brings her hair hands up almost automatically to tangle in Lena’s hair, but Lena captures them, intertwining their fingers as she presses Kara’s hands above her head and holds them there.

Kara can just imagine the sight they must make on camera, Lena hard and demanding, Kara wanton and pliant… she doesn’t expect the jolt of  _want_  it sends through her. She likes this, she realizes. She always likes when Lena kisses her, but she likes the idea of being on display, the idea of performance.

Put on a good show, Lena had said. Kara can do that.

She moans audibly as Lena moves downward, tilting her head back against the glass to more fully display her neck to the camera. Lena brings her thigh up between Kara’s legs and Kara wastes no time grinding down against it, letting out all the little breathy sounds that she knows drive Cat wild.

“Good girl….” Lena murmurs against her neck, and then abruptly she pulls back, using their still-connected hands to pull Kara with her. “Any other day,” she promises, “I would take you against that door. But I want Cat to have a proper view - want every inch of you on display.” Her eyes scan the room in rapid calculation. There are two couches in Cat’s enormous office, but neither of them make for unobscured video footage. Two of the security cameras are pointed at different angles toward the door, and the third is pointed directly at -

Lena smiles, and pushes Kara toward the desk. She makes a good show of passionately sweeping the surface clear, but Kara can see that in reality she’s being very careful not to damage anything Cat is attached to. A moment later, Lena’s eyes are on her, and Kara suddenly can’t think about anything else at all.

“Underwear off, get on the desk,” Lena practically growls, and Kara rushes to obey, but when she reaches around to get her zipper, Lena grabs her wrist and stops her. “Did I say to take off the skirt?” she asks. Understanding and arousal flood Kara in equal measure. She slips her underwear off and hops awkwardly up onto the smooth surface, getting herself situated so that the camera has the best possible view for what’s about to come.

She expects  Lena to come around and kneel between her legs, is practically quivering with anticipation, so she’s surprised when Lena comes up behind her instead, standing so that both their faces are on camera. She reaches around Kara and hikes up the fabric of her skirt around her waist. Then she puts a hand on each of Kara’s thighs and presses down, exerting a gentle pressure that Kara obeys until she is spread obscenely wide, on display for Cat to see.

“Stay like that,” Lena orders firmly. “Make sure that she has a perfect view to see exactly what I’m doing to you.”

She moves upward and begins to slowly unbutton the top buttons of Kara’s blouse, pulling aside the fabric as she does until Kara’s bra is revealed to the camera. She doesn’t bother with the rest of the shirt - leaves it on as she begins to play with Kara’s breasts through the thin fabric of her bra, pinching and twisting. Kara cries out, her head falling back against Lena’s shoulder as she drowns in it. It’s so much - Lena knows exactly what to do for her, and every sensation is heightened by the feeling of the camera on her, by the thought that Cat - that anyone - can see exactly how soaked she’s getting, can see that she is dripping down her own thighs and onto the white surface of Cat’s desk.

Lena wraps an arm around Kara from behind to hold Kara steady against her, and reaches between her legs with her other hand, finding Kara’s clit and pressing down firmly. Kara cries out - screams, even - and tips over the edge.

Lena eases her through the orgasm, soothing strokes as Kara catches her breath, and then helps her off the desk, pulling her in for a gentler, more soothing kiss. Then she pulls out her phone and takes a single photo of the wetness streaked across Cat’s desk.

“I think she’d want a close-up of that,” she explains with a wink, and suddenly Kara is laughing, holding herself up against Lena’s shoulder. This has actually been a gift for her, she realizes, though she doesn’t doubt that Cat will enjoy it too. Lena had seen how unhappy Kara was, had found a way to make it feel as though they were together for this anniversary. Cat may not have been in the room, but Kara is absolutely certain that all three of them are a part of what just happened.

“I love you, you know?” she tells Lena, and smiles as Lena drops a kiss on her forehead.

“Happy anniversary, darling.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Supergirl ficlet in the style of Hikaru no Go <3

Lena has just finished a teaching game. She’s packing up the stones when she hears the tinkling sound of the bell over the salon door, and a moment later a bright voice, louder than etiquette allows for, asks, “excuse me, but is it true that you can play go here?”

Standing at the counter is an athletic looking blonde girl. She can’t be older than 14 - Lena’s age - and she’s smiling charmingly at Jess, who, shockingly, is smiling back. Lena can’t hear what she says, but the blonde girl is looking around with interest, and after a moment she points at Lena, and continues to speak too loudly as she says, “what about that girl over there - she looks my age. Can I play her?”

Jess opens her mouth to answer, undoubtedly to explain that despite being the same age, Lena is hardly a beginner’s opponent, and suddenly, Lena realizes that she doesn’t want that. She starts forward a little too hastily, almost bumping the pot of black stones off the board as she edges around it and makes her way to the front of the salon.

“I’m free for a game if you’d like to play,” she tells the girl, cutting off whatever Jess was saying. Jess looks shocked, and the blonde looks delighted.

“That’s great! I’m Kara - Kara Danvers,” and she holds out her hand. Above it, her eyes are impossibly wide and blue.

“Nice to meet you Kara. I’m Lena - I’m at the table over here,” she leads Kara to the back of the salon, deliberately skimming over her own last name. Even a newbie like Kara may have heard the name Luthor before. She can’t explain to herself why she’s hiding her identity, why she’s bothering with Kara at all. Is she this desperate for company her own age? Maybe she is. Lex has gone off to college this year, only coming back into town for pro competitions, which means that most of the time it’s just Lillian and Lena echoing through the empty halls of what used to be a home, avoiding each other where they can.

“You play as black,” Lena directs, picking up her own pot of white stones.

“Great! That means I go first, right?” Kara asks with a charming smile, and Lena nods, lips quirking a little. Kara really is a beginner - Lena’s willing to bet that this is only going to be her 2nd or 3rd game.

“What size handicap would you like?” she asks, and then guessing that Kara won’t know, adds, “I suggest that you start with 5 stones on the board.”

“Oh, I don’t need a handicap,” Kara says carelessly. “I think I’m a pretty good player.”

Lena laughs. Despite herself, she’s a little charmed by the brash confidence. “Alright, but you asked for it,” she tells Kara teasingly, and nods at her to make her move.

Lena’s never tried to play a beginner like this before, but she remembers the way that Lex taught her when they were children, patient teaching games to demonstrate ladders and nets. She expects Kara to play in the center of the board, or maybe if she’s picked up a basic concept of strategy, to play at sansan. Kara surprises her, fumbling the stone a little in her fingers before dropping it at komoku.

She’s definitely new at the game, the stones clumsy in her fingers as she figures out how to drop the delicate pieces accurately onto the board. Lena sees the way that Kara eyes her hands a little jealously as she balances a stone gracefully between two fingertips before flipping it over and slamming it to the board with a single finger. It’s always been part of the draw, to Lena - there’s a synchronicity to playing go, a matching level of grace in the thinking and in the movements. Playing makes Lena feel coherent, feel whole - the beauty of her working mind comes out through her fingertips, a dance of logic and strategy played out physically on the board in front of her. It’s the only time that she’s at peace with herself.

Clearly Kara’s experience of the game is very different. She fumbles, fidgets, and at one point actually knocks the board with her knee, shaking the pieces, but all the same she plays her way through a classic opening, and Lena has no choice but to mentally revise her analysis of Kara’s skill.

Kara doesn’t know the motions, but she knows the game.

Experimentally, Lena tries moving around Kara’s piece, just to see what she’ll do, to analyze her skill. Kara doesn’t fall for the trap, instead playing tenuki in the left corner. It’s a good move, and Lena has to think fast to counter it. There is not going to be space in this game, she realizes, for little tests and traps - not if she wants to win. This is no teaching game.

They trade moves rapidly, not bothering with the clock. Kara doesn’t stop to think or second-guess herself, dropping move after move onto the board. Her movements are clumsy but her thinking is beautiful: elegant and a little old fashioned. She’s a more cautious player than Lena, but no less effective. Lena gets lost in the game, and it’s like the world around them fades to black - there is nothing left but Lena, Kara, and the intricate web of strategy they are building between them.

And then Kara places a stone on the board, and the web closes - Lena is trapped. She stares, genuinely shocked as Kara’s strategy comes to light, and realizes that she has lost the upper right corner and with it the game.

“I….. resign,” she says, almost numb, and the world comes back into focus with a heavy thud. An audience has gathered around them, and there’s audible shock at Lena’s pronouncement. Unlike Kara, the regulars in the go salon know exactly who Lena Luthor is. They have never seen her lose.

“Hey, that was really fun - thanks for playing me,” Kara says earnestly, and Lena stares at her in disbelief.  _Fun_? The dance they’ve just danced cannot be encapsulated by a word like fun.

“Who  _are_  you?” she asks. She feels helpless, lost to the tides of fate, which have come to drown her at last in the form of this beautiful, smiling girl.

The smile fades a little. “Like I said, my name’s Kara…. I just moved here last year, I go to school down the road.”

“I mean, where did you learn to play?” Lena clarifies. “There’s no way you got to this level by just, I don’t know, experimenting in a phone app. Why haven’t I ever seen you before?”

Kara looks uncomfortable. “I don’t know, it’s sort of a family thing, I guess? I found a box of my parents’ old things, and there was a go board in there. I thought it would be neat to try something they used to do, that’s all.” She checks her phone, perhaps as a way of ending the subject, and then her eyes widen dramatically. “Wow, it’s late! My foster parents are expecting me home for dinner, I’ve gotta run - see you around Lena! Thanks for the game!”

Kara takes off without waiting for Lena to answer. The salon regulars close in, taking over her spot as they eye the game, analyzing it in low mutters. Lena doesn’t join in - she stares, stunned, at the door through which Kara has just disappeared. There’s only one thought running through her mind.

She has to play this girl again.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Impromptu Prompt Will you write 'I thought you were dead' fic? Bonus for lots of Kissing? Pretty please and many thanks!

It’s awkward at first, pretending she doesn’t know Kara is Supergirl, but after a few months she settles into it. **  
**

‘I’m going to be late for lunch - bus is stuck in traffic :( <3 :( ’ Kara texts her, and Lena just snorts and turns on the TV to find out what disaster Supergirl is stopping today. It doesn’t hurt her feelings - she doesn’t worry anymore that Kara doesn’t trust her, or that it’s a secret because she’s a Luthor. Their friendship is good, maybe the best thing in Lena’s life, and she’s pleasantly surprised that she doesn’t doubt Kara. Kara’s face is an open book, and the way that it lights up whenever she sees Lena says more than anything else could.

So there’s no hurt anymore at all. It’s more like…. politely pretending not to notice that someone has spilled ketchup on their shirt. Lena doesn’t want to breach Kara’s privacy or make her uncomfortable, so she doesn’t point out that there’s no reason for Kara to be on a bus when CatCo is in walking distance of L Corp. Instead she goes back to the data analysis report she was reading, keeping one fond eye on the news.

‘Supergirl fights Mud Monster on Local Beach’ reads the headline, and the footage above shows a blue and red blur in the distance, facing off against what looks like an enormous brown blob.

‘Frequency increased at a rate of .8 hz/ms, an improvement by 6.5% over previous methods,’ the data report informs her. Lena sighs, bored, and glances back up at the tv in time to see the brown blob hit Supergirl with some kind of electric zap - and to see Supergirl tumble out of the air like a stone, hitting the water like it’s made of concrete.

Almost in shock, she turned the volume up, waiting for Kara to surge back out of the water, to take this stupid creature down.

“ - no sign of re-emergence,” the newscaster’s voice is saying, and it doesn’t make any sense, because this bizarre mud monstrosity is nothing worse than Kara has faced a thousand times before, this should be just another Thursday.

They should be getting lunch.

A helicopter comes into view moments later, and people in black suits jump out, shooting at the monster with bolts of electricity - some kind of modified cattle prod, the scientist in Lena decides, looking at the way the electric bolt travels along the metal rail of the weapon before being released. It doesn’t seem to have much of a range, but it looks as though it could do some damage, it must be creating a targeted charge in the air for the electricity to travel through…

The camera cuts off, and the station goes to a stunned looking brunette behind a desk.

“Reporters on the scene say that their equipment is being  confiscated by a government organization and that they are being forced to evacuate the area. Is this monster out of control, or is the government trying to cover up the death of Nation City’s resident superhero? Early predictions are that Supergirl’s injuries must be extremely severe, if not fatal. We go now to alien expert Jason Ives, Jason - what do you make of this footage?  _Could_  Supergirl be gone?”

“Well, Sharon -”

Lena shuts it off. She’s pretty sure she’s as much of an alien expert as Jason, whoever he might be. She knows that Kara can hold her breath, that she must surely be -

\- Lena doesn’t know how to lie to herself. It had been a hard hit. If Kara’s powers were gone before she hit the water, as they appeared to be, she is likely dead.

There’s no way to know for sure, except that - if she’s OK, if everything turns out alright, Kara will text her.

‘Raincheck on lunch plans - are you free tomorrow?’ Lena texts, and then she puts her cell phone in front of her and waits.

Jess comes in around 2:00, sees Lena sitting on the couch, and leaves again without a word. Lena can hear her, in the outer office, canceling and rescheduling afternoon appointments. “Ms Luthor is unavoidably indisposed this afternoon.”

She comes back in as the sun is setting.

“Ms Luthor, I brought you some tea…” she says hesitantly, placing it in front of Lena. She hovers, fidgeting a little, and Lena turns to look at her.

“I think Kara is dead,” she says, and her voice comes out a little hoarse, but overall calm. Her back is stiff - she thinks she has been sitting very still, maybe.

Jess sits down next to her. “I saw the news,” she says, looking a little uncomfortable at this foray into the land of emotion. “I, uh - do you remember that time Kara got in here by super-speeding around me? She’s not very sneaky.”

“No, she’s not,” Lena agrees, and makes a wobbly attempt to return Jess’ gentle smile. “I’ve just been waiting to see if she texts me back.” Her voice cracks on ‘text’, and she’s sobbing before she can get the word ‘back’ fully out.

Jess hands her a box of tissues and makes a show of examining the painting on the wall, trying to allow Lena some privacy without actually leaving her alone. Lena blows her nose and works to get herself under control, putting her mask back into place with the skill of many years’ practice.

“You should go ahead and go home, I don’t think I’m going to get anymore work done tonight,” she tells Jess apologetically.

“Why don’t I give you a ride?” Jess suggests, and Lena lets her. She doesn’t want to be focused on the road if her phone goes off.

**

At some point, although she doesn’t necessarily try to, Lena falls asleep. She wakes up to the sight of bright sunlight pouring in through her window already, illuminating the cool green and cream of her bed set and turning them warm, and she has a brief moment of panic - she’s late for work - before she remembers why her alarm wasn’t set. She grapples for a moment with false hope - her phone buzzing with a text would have woken her up, it always does, but she can’t help hoping anyways - and it takes a moment before she reaches for her phone with trembling hands.

It’s dead. She almost rolls her eyes at this unnecessary prolonging of agony, plugs it into the charger and waits a few minutes for it to start up, to connect to her wifi, to download messages…

There’s one new message notification. She opens the app with her heart in her throat, and then throws her phone to the ground in a fit of frustration when it turns out to be from Jess. Undoubtedly asking whether she’s planning to be in the office today or not, though Lena doesn’t bother to read it.

She goes to take a shower, because she doesn’t know what else to do. Lena has never been good at this part of things; she thinks it’s something she and Lillian have in common. They know how to navigate the big moments - the funerals, the trials, the arguments - but when it comes to those little moments in between, they stumble. Lillian had cleaned Lex’s room after the arrest. Lena, with nothing else to do, takes a shower, and puts on her work clothes.

She is making a pot of coffee when there is a knock at her door.

Lena assumes that it’s Jess coming to check up on her, which is sweet, though probably motivated by the complete chaos that her absence has created at L Corp.

She allows herself a deep breath for composure before she pads across the kitchen, absurd in her dress pants and bare feet, and opens the door.

Kara is on the other side of it.

“Hey!” she says, all smiles, and holds up a white pastry bag, shaking it invitingly. “My phone died yesterday and I felt bad that I missed lunch, so I brought by apology donuts, but you and Jess weren’t there, and some grumpy guy with weird hair told me that you’d called out sick, so I…. Lena?”

Something about Lena’s face finally must clue Kara in that there is more going on than a cold. “Lena, what’s wrong?” she asks, and Lena reaches out to grab Kara’s face in both hands and slams their lips together.

It’s not even a kiss really, just that one violent motion and then Lena shaking against Kara’s mouth, where it has fallen open under hers in shock.

She pulls back, desperate to see Kara’s face again. She can’t even worry about what she has just revealed, about everything that she may have just ruined. It’s more important to drink in Kara’s confused blue eyes, the sweet little crinkle in her forehead.

Before she knows she is going to do it, Lena slaps her. It hurts her hand a little, but it’s satisfying, and she raises her arm to do it again, but Kara captures both Lena’s hands in her own, holding them firmly and shuffling them both through Lena’s front door, kicking it shut behind her. “Lena, what’s the matter? What’s going on?” she demands.

“Let go of me - I’m furious with you!” Lena tells her, glaring and trying unsuccessfully to pull her hands out Kara’s grasp.

“Because I missed lunch? I really am sorry, I -”

“You let me think you were dead!” Lena shouts, and then stops abruptly, the rage leaving her. Kara feels the struggle end and prudently lets her have her hands back, and Lena repeats it a little quieter, “I thought you were dead. I saw the fight on TV, and all the reports said that Supergirl never came back up, and then I didn’t hear from you…”

Kara’s face goes pale. In the background, Lena’s coffee maker beeps the upbeat little pattern of notes that signal her coffee is done brewing. “Lena, I’m sorry - I didn’t know you’d be worried, I didn’t know you knew,” she says a little helplessly, reaching for her, and Lena lets herself be pulled into Kara’s warm arms, shuddering a little at the comforting strength of her.

She puts a hand on Kara’s cheek, and this time she’s more deliberate about it, fitting their lips together with careful intent. Kara sighs against her, and then her lips start to move. The kisses stay shallow, a series of gentle presses of lip until finally Kara moves back, resting their foreheads together and swiping tears off Lena’s cheeks with her thumbs.

“Lena, I’m fine,” she promises, and leads Lena over to the couch, sitting and pulling Lena down so that she is curled comfortably into Kara’s side, practically in her lap. “I’m totally fine, I swear.”  
  
“I’m glad. I’m still kind of mad at you,” Lena murmurs. She’s embarrassed at how watery her voice sounds, and she buries her face in Kara’s neck to hide her blush. That puts bare skin beneath her mouth and she licks at it experimentally, feels Kara shiver. Intrigued, she tries biting down. Kara squeaks.

“OK! I think thaaat’s probably enough of that until we’ve, I don’t know, talked or something,” she says, and when Lena lifts her head back up to look, Kara is bright red. Well, if one of them is going to be blushing, Lena would much rather it was Kara.

“Are you sure?” she asks, deliberately pitching her voice deep, and is victorious when Kara goes even redder. She doesn’t pursue it, though - the feeling of Kara’s body pressed against her side is desperately needed comfort. Lena doesn’t have the energy for anything but this. “I don’t want to talk right now,” she admits, although they certainly have a long list of things to talk about. Instead she lets her head fall forward again, shifting so that she can lie comfortable against Kara’s chest. Kara’s arms come up around her in an embrace.

“I really am sorry,” she says. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Just stay like this for awhile,” Lena answers. She realizes abruptly that she is exhausted. She never even got her cup of coffee. “I think I’m going to fall asleep…. I think this is what it feels like when adrenaline wears off,” she warns, and Kara strokes a soothing hand through her hair.

“Take a nap,” she says. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“With donuts?” Lena asks, and feels Kara’s chest move under her as she laughs.

“With donuts,” she agrees, and Lena’s eyes flutter shut.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> International Kissing Day Challenge - first kiss

She’s going to do it this time, really. She is. This isn’t like the last two times. For one thing, this time Kara excused herself to the restroom right at the end of the meal, found the waiter, and gave him her credit card, so she has officially treated Lena to dinner. (The two times before that, Lena had insisted on taking the check, and Lena is  _very_  good at insisting.) **  
**

“Kara, did you sneak off and pay?” Lena laughs when the waitress brings the receipt back, and Kara beams, proud of herself. “You know I make your monthly rent every 14 minutes, right?” Lena reminds her, and Kara mock scowls.

“Alright, first of all, that is rude for you to say out loud,” she pronounces, and Lena grins at her unrepentantly. “True, but rude. Secondly - it’s not about the value of the meal, it’s the principle of the thing! I wanted to treat you to something.”

At that, Lena’s smile transforms from a smirk into something warmer and more intense, like the sun, and Kara has to look away and blush, because she wanted to make her point, but she’s afraid she has played her hand a little too early.

She’s going to do it tonight, but she didn’t mean right  _now_.

The restaurant they’re in is all wooden beams and the smell of firewood and open space. They’re in the outdoor patio, where the only light is flickering candles and the moon, and there’s an honest-to-god little  _stream_  running over a pebbled bath down the middle.

Kara has spent the entire evening watching the way that the candlelight dances on Lena’s skin, the way it makes daring jumps from the hollow at her throat down to the swell of her breasts, to the music of the water running behind them.

Lena leans in and puts her hand on top of Kara’s, and Kara feels dizzy. “You know,” she says in a deep, conspiratorial voice, “if you hadn’t paid the check already, we could have ordered dessert.”

Kara squeaks, and Lena laughs, taking an open honest delight in whatever expression has crossed Kara’s face. It’s a beautiful sound, and Kara vows once again that before the night is over, she’s going to risk a kiss.

She’s going to do it this time.

“I suppose we should call it a night…” Lena says, regret apparent in her voice, and Kara panics.

“No no, absolutely not…. you can’t suggest dessert and then not follow through, that would make you a tease,” she says, and Lena laughs.

“Well, I’d hate to be accused of that,” she says, and sends Kara a sidelong look through her lashes.

“Of course,” Kara agrees, trying to hang onto some kind of dignity in the face of flirtatious banter. “So obviously you’re coming with me to get ice cream, there’s this great place across the park - they’ve got chocolate ice cream with red pepper in it, have you ever tried that? It doesn’t sound good, but it’s amazing.” In unison, they pick up their bags and head out the door. “And they have this kumquat-whiskey flavor that they only make on weekends, we’re going to have to go back one Saturday so you can try it, I don’t even like whiskey and it’s still the best thing I’ve ever had in my mouth. And they have chocolate sorbet, which doesn’t sound like it’d be that different from chocolate ice cream, but it’s completely its own thing. Plus -”

“Kara.” Lena stops her as they enter the park, putting a hand on her shoulder. Kara’s grateful for the help - she knows she’s babbling, knows that it’s a thing she does when she’s nervous, but that doesn’t mean she can stop herself.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, as Lena steps in close. “That was probably more than you wanted to know abo-” she’s cut off by Lena’s lips pressing against her own, warm and soft. It only lasts a moment, and then Lena pulls back, smiling at her from scan centimeters away.

“Oh,” Kara murmurs - stunned.

“This is what we came into the park for, right?” Lena asks, all false innocence and wicked amusement. “I thought you could use a little help,” she adds, and Kara gives an outraged whine.

“Unfair! I was building up to it - I’ve been working on my courage all night, I can’t believe you just swooped in and stole my moment like that. I had it!”

Lena laughs, her head thrown back in delight, and Kara joins her, the heady pleasure of the evening rolling through her. It’s not what she’d planned, but everything about this moment is perfect and inevitable.

“Sorry, let’s pretend it never happened, you can have a do-over,” Lena says, trying to straighten her face. Kara’s eyes narrow, and she pulls Lena in, capturing her lips with her own for a longer second first kiss.


End file.
